Cookin’ With Link – How to Become a Master Chef in Breath of the Wild

A Handy Guide and Recipes in Breath of the Wild

Cooking in Breath of the Wild is essential to surviving. Nearly everything can kill you, from running out of stamina at a bad time to literally freezing to death, so taking the time to cook can help you survive out in the wild a little longer. Cooking creates meals and elixirs than can do more than just restore hearts, it creates an abundance of opportunities to boost your attack, stamina, defense, stealth, and resistance to hot and cold temperatures. So if your gliding around and the paraglider and run out of stamina, you can quickly hit pause, eat some honey candy, boost your stamina and be on your way without the fear of plummeting to your inevitable death. It is without a doubt an incredibly handy tool.

The basics of how to cook are vague but simple:

1. Locate a cooking pot, which looks like a black bowl or wok on top of a fire.
2. Go into the inventory and select ingredients, up to 5, and select “Hold”. 
3. Walk up to the cooking pot and hit “Cook” when prompted.

There are several different types of meals to make that correspond with different bonus effects. Those are:

Hearty                  Recover all Hearts
Hasty                    Increase Movement Speed
Sneaky                 Increase Stealth
Mighty                 Increase Strength
Tough                   Increase Defense
Spicy                    Resist Cold
Chilly                   Resist Heat
Electro                 Resist Electricity
Fireproof             Resist Burn
Energizing          Restore Stamina
Enduring            Temporary Stamina

Finding ingredients to cook said meals are surprisingly self-explanatory. Things picked up while exploring are usually labeled something like “swift carrot” or “Zapshroom”. To get added bonus effects in meals or to make elixirs, you cook them together like ingredients. However cooking together 2 different effect ingredients cancels out the bonus effect altogether. An Iron Mushroom, for example, can’t be mixed with a Spicy Pepper to make something defensive and spicy but effects can stack if they’re within the same category. For instance, a tough meal can consist of a combination of things like an Iron Mushroom and a Pumpkin. Effects can last longer by the number of similar ingredients you add, like adding all 5 Spicy Peppers gets you cold resistance for 10 minutes.

On top of the bonus effects, when cooking you may also hear a certain sound. When this happens you will receive an extra bonus at random. These are:

• An extra yellow heart
• Three extra hearts
• Bonus increase by a further 5 or 10 minutes
• Bonus increased by +1
• Stamina increases

You can guarantee to get these bonuses by using particular items or cooking during a certain time. Cooking during a Blood Moon, when the moon is red and enemies respawn, will give you a random bonus. As will using a star fragment or dragon body part in your recipe.

Recipes:
While Breath of the Wild encourages the player to experiment with cooking, after some trial and error and a few if not many bad meals (too horrible to even look at) there are some staple recipes to help get one started to becoming Master Chef Link.

Restore Hearts:
Omelet
Ingredients: Bird Egg
Effect: Restores 2 hearts
Meat Skewer
Ingredients: Apple, Raw Meat
Effect: Restores 3 hearts.
Seared Gourmet Steak
Ingredients: Raw Gourmet Meat
Effect: Restores 4 and a half hearts, can be cooked on an open flame.
Fish and Mushroom Skewer
Ingredients: Fleet-Lotus Seeds, Zapshroom, Staminoka Bass.
Effect: Restores 7 hearts.
Glazed Meat
Ingredients: Hearty Truffle, Raw Meat, Courser Bee Honey.
Effect: Restores 10 hearts.

Resist Cold
Spicy Fruit and Mushroom Mix
Ingredients: Hylian Shroom (x3), Spicy Pepper (x2).
Effect: Restores 5 hearts and gives cold resistance for 6 mins, 30 secs.
Spicy Pepper Seafood
Ingredients: Hyrule Bass, Spicy Pepper.
Effect: Restores 3 hearts and gives cold resistance for 3 mins.
Spicy Meaty Rice Balls
Ingredients: Raw Meat, Hylian Rice, Fresh Milk, Goat Butter, Spicy Pepper.
Effects: Restores 6 hearts and gives cold resistance for 6 mins, 40 secs.

Resist Heat
Chilly Steamed Fish
Ingredients: Hylian Shroom, Cool Safflina, Hyrule Bass.
Effects: Gives heat resistance for 3 mins, 30 secs.

Boost Attack:
Mighty Crab Risotto
Ingredients: Hylian Rice, Goat Butter, Rock Salt, Razorclaw Crab.
Effects: Restores 4 hearts, gives attack boost for 4 mins, 10 secs.
Mighty Steamed Fish
Ingredients: Bird Egg, Hyrule Herb, Razorclaw Crab.
Effects: Restores 6 hearts and gives attack boost for 2 mins 50 secs.

Boost Defense
Tough Fish and Mushroom Skewer
Ingredients: Hylian Shroom, Armored Carp.
Effects: Restores 3 hearts, gives defense boost for 1 min 20 secs.
Tough Milk
Ingredients: Fortified Pumpkin, Milk.
Effects: Restores 2 hearts, defense boost for 3 mins 30 secs.

Boost Speed
Hasty Fish and Mushroom Skewer
Ingredients: Fleet-Lotus Seeds, Hylian Shroom, Hyrule Bass.
Effect: Restores 3 hearts and gives speed boost for 2 mins.
Hasty Friend Wild Greens
Ingredients: Swift Carrot.
Effects: Restores 1 heart, gives speed boost for 2 mins 10 secs.

Boost Stamina
Energizing Fish Skewer
Ingredients: Staminoka Bass
Effects: Restores 2 hearts, refills stamina to the max.
Energizing Glazed Meat
Ingredients: Raw Meat, Courser Bee Honey.
Effects: Restore 6 hearts and refills some stamina.

Boost Stealth
Sneaky Fried Wild Greens
Ingredients: Blue Nightshade.
Effects: Gives stealth boost for 2 mins.
Sneaky Steamed Fish
Ingredients: Silent Shroom (x2), Silent Princess, Sneaky River Snail (x2).
Effects: Restores 8 hearts and gives stealth boost for 10 mins.

Elixirs
Like meals, elixirs are potions made by combining food, monster parts and critters. Monster parts are found around once a monster is killed, like Moblin Fang. Critters are the small insects buzzing throughout the game like butterflies, fireflies.

Spicy Elixir
ingredients: Sizzlewing Butterfly, Bokoblin Fang.
Effect: Cold resistance.
Spicy Elixir
ingredients: Warm Darner, Monster Parts.
Effect: Cold resistance.
Energizing Elixir
ingredients: Bokoblin Horn, Restless Cricket.
Effect: Restores full Stamina.
Hasty Elixir
ingredients: Highland Lizard, Monster Parts.
Effect: Increases movement speed.
Hasty Elixir
ingredients: Hightail Lizard, Bokoblin Horn.
Effect: Increases movement speed for 2 mins 10 secs.
Hasty Elixir
ingredients: Hot-footed Frog, Monster Parts.
Effect: Increases movement speed for 4 mins 10 secs.
Sneaky Elixir
ingredients: Keese Eyeball, Sunset Firefly.
Effect: Increases stealth.
Sneaky Elixir
ingredients: Sneaky River Snail, Sunset Firefly, Octorock Eyeball.
Effect: Increases stealth for 5 mins, 50 secs.
Electro Elixir
ingredients: Thunderwing Butterfly, Yellow Lizalfos tail.
Effect: Electric resistance for 5 mins, 40 secs.
Electro Elixir
ingredients: Thunderwing Butterfly, Electric Darner, Yellow Lizalfos tail.
Effect: Electric resistance for 8 mins 10 secs.
Chilly Elixir
ingredients: Cold Darner, Red Lizalfos tail.
Effect: Heat resistance for 5 mins 40 secs.
Mighty Elixir
ingredients: Bladed Rhino Beetle, Moblin Horn.
Effect: Attack boost for 2 mins.
Fairy Tonic
ingredients: Fairy, Bokoblin Horn (x2), Bokoblin Fang (x2).
Effect: a recovery Elixir that rewards with five heart icons.

Cooking in Breath of the Wild may seem daunting and time-consuming, but it can actually save a player in a split second more than one would think. Now get cookin’.